Move files with SFTP

SFTP runs inside the SSH connection of a saved host: the same login, the same jump hosts, nothing extra to set up on the server. A server without the SFTP subsystem is reached over SCP instead, with fewer features (SCP fallback).

Open a host’s files

Desktop: choose SFTP in the sidebar (or a host’s ⋯ › Open SFTP). Pick a host, or Browse this computer. The screen has two panes: keep Local (this computer) on one side and choose the host with Browse on the other.

Phone: open the SFTP tab and pick a host. Transfers shows what is being copied.

Copy files

• Desktop: drag files or folders from one pane to the other, or use Copy to other pane and Download in a file’s menu. Files dragged in from your file manager are uploaded too.
• Phone: use Upload and Download, or Copy and Paste between tabs of two hosts.

Transfers run in the background and are listed under Transfers with their progress; they can be paused, resumed and retried. When a file of the same name is already there, Sternway asks: Skip, Replace or Keep both, with Apply to all remaining conflicts for a folder.

Edit a remote file

• Edit opens a text file of up to 1 MiB in Sternway’s own editor and saves it back to the host.
• Edit in external editor (desktop) opens a copy in your editor. Each time you save it, Sternway asks whether to upload the change. Files that could run code when opened with the system’s default app are refused there; choose an editor with Open with… instead.
• Preview (F3) shows a file without opening it for editing.

Change permissions and owners

Permissions… in a file’s menu shows read, write and execute for owner, group and others, the octal mode, and the owner and group ids. Select several items to change them together, and tick Apply to folder contents to change everything in a folder (files only, folders only, or both).

Open files as root

Open as administrator reopens the host’s files through sudo, so you can read and change files that only root may. The pane shows as root. Sternway runs the host’s own sftp-server with sudo on the connection you already have, and types a password only when sudo asks for one:

• without asking you, only a password this host already got from you in this session, or the saved one if the login itself used it;
• otherwise you are asked; Use saved password sends the saved one only when you press it.

At most three wrong passwords are tried. The password is not logged or kept unless you tick Save to host. A sudo that asks through a prompt of its own (two-factor, some SSSD or Kerberos setups, sudo-rs) cannot be answered this way; after 20 seconds Sternway says sudo did not answer. It needs a host whose login shell is a POSIX shell (Linux, macOS, the BSDs).

Open as your own user again goes back.

Deleted files

On the desktop, deleting files on a host moves them into .sternway-trash in your home folder there (Settings › SFTP › Move deleted files to the trash, on by default). Trash… in the toolbar lists them, with Restore and Empty trash. Items in the trash still take space on the host until you empty it. With the setting off, deleting removes files for good.

Next

• Copy one file to many hosts at once: Act on many hosts at once.
• Copy files from scripts: Use the command line.
• Every SFTP field and setting: Sessions and tools and Settings.